The Vanishing Track (10 page)

Sean was caught at the back of the crowd. The street was filling up with people, and it was getting harder to keep his eyes on Lady Luck's parka. Cars honked their horns, and somewhere close by someone was yelling into a bullhorn. Sean noticed groups of ten and twenty police officers scattered about as he threaded his way through the crowd, pushing people with his shoulder when they crushed in around him, voices blaring in his ears. He felt as if they were tearing at his backpack, so he slipped it from his shoulders and let it dangle from his left hand.

He spotted Lady Luck disappearing into an alley. I bet she's going to shoot up, thought Sean, and he forced his way through. A café entrance straddled the corner, so he put his pack down in the doorway and stepped into the alley. He scanned it for Lady Luck. She wasn't there. The excitement made him need to pee. He unzipped his fly and pissed on the trash cans and the heaps of garbage piled next to them. He was just finishing when he heard a voice say, “Zip it up, son, and come with us.”

“I'M SORRY THIS
took so long, Sean,” said the lawyer, sitting down across from him in the small interview room. “We had quite the night last night. I hope that your one night in jail wasn't too difficult. I'm Denman Scott. I work for an organization called Priority Legal Society. We work with people in the Downtown Eastside to ensure that their rights under the law are respected, and we advocate for the homeless and other people often overlooked by the criminal justice system. I'll be your lawyer during the proceedings for your recent arrest.”

Sean was seated across from Denman, a cup of coffee in a Styrofoam cup before him. He no longer had his coat and was disheveled. He had a bruise on his left cheek.

“How did you get that bruise?”

“Cop hit me,” said Sean.

“During the arrest or after?”

“After, in the back of the wagon.”

“Did you do anything to provoke it?”

“Nothing. I was shackled. I couldn't do anything. I was just sitting there.”

“Have you ever been arrested before?”

Sean didn't hesitate. “No. I mean, I've been in trouble here and there. Nothing serious. I've had some bad luck, that's all.”

“What happened yesterday, from your perspective?”

Sean looked at Denman for a split second, then down at his hands. “I was on my way to the rally.” He noticed his hands were dirty, his fingernails broken. He put them under the table. “I wanted to be a part of the cause, you know? You know, do my part,” he looked up, and saw Denman nodding and making notes.

“I come from a life of privilege. I hate the way this city has turned its back on the poor. So I wanted to go to the rally, add my voice. Do my part. I guess I had too much coffee in the morning. And there aren't any bathrooms around. I couldn't hold it any longer so I slipped into the alley there near the park and took a leak. Then there's this cop behind me with his baton out and he tells me that I'm under arrest and before I can say anything he cracks me in the side of the head with the baton.”

Denman made some notes. “You said that you were assaulted in the paddy wagon.”

“That's right.”

“And just now you said the arresting officer hit you in the alley.”

Sean looked into Denman's eyes, his own flat and unreadable. “That's right. Both times.”

“So you were assaulted twice, once at the alley by the arresting officer, and again in the wagon after you had been shackled.”

“That's right.”

“Okay,” said Denman, rubbing a hand over his bald head.

“Can you help me?”

“I think so,” said Denman. “I'll have to talk with the arresting officer about your charges. These are serious accusations, Sean, but if what you're saying is true—”

“Of course it's true!” Sean said loudly.

Denman stopped. “I'm not questioning your word, Sean. I'm just saying, if we can make this case in court, it could help us out with our complaint against the
VPD
about excessive force.”

“You think I could help that way?”

“We'll see. But I think so. Sean, can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“It's personal.”

“Okay.”

“Are you on the street now?”

Sean looked down at his hands. “My parents are dead. They were killed in a car accident a few years ago. There's a big fight about their estate. They were worth millions. The whole family is trying to get their greedy hands on the money.”

“And somehow you got cut out?”

“I'm the only child; you'd think that I'd be in line for some of it. I don't want it all; just enough to get a good start in life.”

“So you're living on the street?”

“I was living in the Lucky Strike Hotel for the last few months, but . . .”

“But it's been closed down,” said Denman.

“Yeah, it really sucks. I don't know where I'm going to go.”

“I'll have my office look into a temporary shelter.”

“Those places scare me. Too many drugs. And crazies. They steal your shoes at night. They do things. Bad things.”

“We'll see what we can do. The Crown will likely release you on a Promise to Appear. That doesn't require a cash deposit. It does mean you have to show up for a court hearing. Can you do that?”

Sean nodded. “I've got important work to do,” he said. “I'm volunteering to help with the homeless problem. I really want to get back to work.”

“
THE KID WENT
berserk when we tried to put him in the wagon,” said Staff Sergeant Paddy O'Connor. They were sitting in an interview room a few doors down from where Denman had interviewed Sean Livingstone.

“He says that the arresting officer hit him with his baton in the alley before he was even in the wagon,” said Denman.

The staff sergeant shook his head. “Not the way I read it,” he said, holding the arrest report in his hand. “Look, Denman, I know things are pretty tense right now. The arresting officer was Jim Meyers, a good man. Solid. Saskatchewan farm boy from way back. Twenty years on the force here in Vancouver. He's not one of the hotshots looking for collars. He's just doing his job. Says the kid was taking a leak in the alley and when he tells him to zip it and come with him, the kid gives him some lip. Meyers escorts him to the wagon and tells the kid to sit down and the kid spits at him. Can you believe that?”

Denman didn't respond.

“Meyers tells the kid that he's out of chances. He tells the kid that the Crown could charge him for assault for that and the kid says go ahead, he'll sue for false arrest. That's when Meyers says that nobody is under arrest,
yet
. At this point the kid isn't listening, and tries to push past Meyers. Meyers uses his baton to slip a hold on the boy and work him into the wagon that way, and the kid goes crazy, flailing and kicking. Did more harm to himself than to my officer, thank God.”

“How did he get the bruise, Paddy?”

“Probably when he was flailing around in the wagon.”

Denman looked at the police officer.

“Look, Denman, I shouldn't even be talking with you about this. You know what Andrews has said. Personally, I think your heart's in the right place, but I think you got a beef with coppers and that's clouding your judgment a little. Everybody should just sit down over a pint and sort this thing out. You got to believe me, the kid was the one who went crazy. Not Meyers. He's a straight cop.”

“Thanks for the perspective, Paddy,” Denman said, rising.

“You're going to represent him?”

“Yeah. I'm going to talk with the Crown, see if we can't cut the kid a break. And I appreciate your time, Paddy. Thanks,” Denman said, reaching across the table to shake the staff sergeant's meaty hand.

IT TOOK SEAN
a few hours to get his stuff back after Denman secured his release. First he had to wait to have his jacket delivered to him at the police station. Then he went to the mouth of Trounce Alley and asked about his backpack at the café where he had dumped it.

“Yeah, we found a pack.”

“Can I have it back?”

The proprietor was a skinny man with a handlebar mustache. “What's your name?”

“Sean.”

“Sean what?”

“Livingstone.”

“Why you got a funny nickel-plated tool in the bag?”

“It's called a come-along. They use them for pulling trucks out of the dirt. It was my father's. He was a logger. He's sick. I had it nickel-plated and was going to have it mounted. But the fucking cops busted me at the rally.”

The man looked at him. “And what's with the butcher's coat?”

Sean looked at the man narrowly. “I'm an artist. I use it to paint.”

The café owner silently regarded him.

“Can I get my stuff, please?” Or I'll burn your fucking place to the ground, you prick, he wanted to say, but decided to smile innocently instead.

“Sure.”

It took Sean two whole days to find Lady Luck again. Forty-eight hours lost because of the pigs. The last of the tenants of the Lucky Strike Hotel had been cleared from the building. That's when the End Poverty Now Coalition had shown up in force and occupied the whole second floor. Sean had seen them storming the place while he walked by. The obligatory
TV
crews waited, their hungry cameras eager for the action to unfold, as it inevitably would.

Sean checked all the pawn shops. He even asked after her here and there, pretending to have been ripped off by her, and trying to track down his goods. It was no use. He was growing frustrated.

On the afternoon of the second day out of jail, he found himself on the steps of the Carnegie Centre.

“Hi, Sean,” he heard a voice beside him say. He turned his flat eyes to the smiling face of Juliet Rose.

“Oh, hi.” He affected a pleased-to-see-you tone.

“Haven't seen you for a while. I was getting worried.”

“I got arrested. I went to the rally and got busted. Cops beat me up,” said Sean, pointing to the fading bruise on his cheek and the torn jacket.

“I'm so sorry to hear that.”

“Got a lawyer though. A good one.”

“I'm glad. You sound like you need representation. Have you eaten today?”

“No. Not yesterday either.”

“Can you come in for something hot?” Juliet nodded toward the Carnegie Centre.

“I'm waiting for someone,” said Sean. “I can't miss her. She's got something of mine. But I lost her when they arrested me.”

“Maybe I know her?”

“Naw, she's not from around here.”

“Okay,” said Juliet, slipping her bag form her shoulders. “I've got some granola bars here,” she said, unzipping the orange pack and handed Sean two bars. “Sean, where are you staying?”

“Nowhere,” he said, looking down at his feet. “I mean, I was at the Lucky Strike. But it's closed. The protesters are there now.”

“I know.”

“I got nowhere to stay.”

“Come see me tomorrow at lunch. I'm doing a Saturday clinic at the Centre. I'll see if we can't find you a place.”

“That would be really great,” said Sean. “I know I can get back on my feet if someone would just give me a chance.”

“Sometimes that's all it takes,” said Juliet.

HE FOUND LADY
Luck half an hour later. She was panhandling outside a pawn shop. He watched her go down an alley, buy a hit of smack from a dealer, and sit down to inject the drugs behind a dumpster.

Sean walked right up to her and hunched down as she was rolling up her sleeve.

“Waddaya want?” she said.

“I'm Sean,” he said, slipping off his pack. Lady Luck eyed him. She had her sleeve rolled up and was tying off her arm with a length of rubber surgical hose.

“You a pig?”

“Nope, I'm a street nurse.”

“You don't look like one.” Lady Luck looked at his hands, which were now stained and dark.

“I like to blend in,” he smiled, but hid his hands behind his pack. He was aware that his hygiene was slipping the more time he spent sleeping rough.

“I don't need nothing,” she said, taking a needle from her pocket and holding it in her teeth. She used a lighter to heat up a blackened spoon in which the smack sat.

“Why don't we get you to InSite?”

“Too many fucking pigs.”

“They won't bother you.”

“I've got a sheet,” she said, the drugs boiling.

She drew the plunger back and the hot smack flowed like lava into the syringe. She held the syringe in her mouth again while she pressed her arm for a vein. Her arms were bruised and purple from so much abuse. Several of the veins in her left arm were hard and black.

“I want to help you. What's your name?”

Lady Luck laughed.

“I'll just call you Lady Luck then,” said Sean, reaching into his pack.

She inserted the needle into a vein and pressed the syringe down, her eyes rolling back as the juice coursed into her system and caused her adrenal glands to react immediately. Sean first pulled his stained coat on and then took the come-along from his backpack. Her eyes began to glaze and her mouth dropped open.

IT HAD BEEN THE LONGEST
week of Denman Scott's life. Since he had left his house on Tuesday morning, when the Lucky Strike had closed, he'd only seen his bed for a few hours. Now it was Friday, and there was little he wanted to do more than slip between his sheets and sleep for the entire weekend. Instead, he stepped off the bus at Cambie Street and made his way toward the Cambie Hotel, last known location of one Cole Blackwater.

He had received a call from Martin Middlemarch about forty-five minutes earlier, as he was finishing the paperwork on the last of his newly acquired clients from the Lucky Strike Hotel, and what the media was now calling the Lucky Strike Riot. In all, Priority Legal had taken on fifty-three new cases in the course of thirty-six hours. He had spent twelve hours at police headquarters, interviewing people arrested in the frenzy that had erupted when the riot police showed up and mask-wearing anarchists started throwing balloons filled with red paint.